The takeover of Insight project - which was started to impart ICT skills for visually-challenged persons - has run into controversy, yet again. Though it was earlier announced that the project, formerly run by IT Mission with the support of SPACE, will be taken over by the Kerala Social Security Mission (KSSM) this week, the handing over has now been deferred. It has been postponed citing ‘internal politics in the project.’
SPACE - Society for Promotion of Alternative Computing and Employment - was managing the project for IT Mission till December 26, 2011, when the contract between them expired. SPACE had expressed its desire to keep off the project as many of the resource persons with Insight were reportedly non-cooperative with it.
The KSSM was expected to take over the project by January 5. However, a walk-in interview conducted by the Mission to select a project coordinator last week has apparently raised much dust, inviting fresh problems. According to two complaints filed before the Social Welfare Secretary, the interview was a farce. However, a top KSSM official clarified that the interview was fair and the person selected was done so purely on his own merit. ‘’It is the internal politics between Insight trainers and SPACE that resulted in the defamatory campaign against the interview process,’’ said the official.
Sources said that the staff pattern of Insight and how they should be absorbed by KSSM after the takeover was still a matter of confusion. Also, there is clarity to be brought in regarding the asset list of Insight which was handed over by IT Mission, sources said. It is learned that the Secretaries of the IT and Social Welfare Department will hold another round of talks with Insight and KSSM officials before any further decision in this regard is taken.
Meanwhile, the trainers at Insight have come up with another allegation that SPACE had not handed over many documents, student registers and laptops to the KSSM during the shifting. ‘’We have been with the project for long to understand what is missing and what is being handed over. Many valuables and documents of the project are yet to be transferred,’’ said G Albert, one of the trainers of Insight. He said that though a mail was sent to SPACE seeking an answer, no reply was given.
When contacted, a senior SPACE official said that the problems are the making of the former project coordinator who had run the project on his own whims without communicating with SPACE or IT Mission. ‘’Later this person was asked to quit and it is the same person who has been now selected by KSSM as the project coordinator, the reason why we smell a rat. The asset list was prepared by this person when he was in Insight. Now they say it is incomplete,’’ the official said.
Whatever the reason for the ruckus, a novel project which had offered a fresh lease of life to many visually-challenged people has met with the worst fate imaginable.